Sshhh.... IT happens
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Intel's chipset screwup forces Samsung to offer refunds
KOREAN HARDWARE MAKER Samsung will offer refunds or exchanges on its PCs built with Intel's faulty chipset inside.
Yesterday, Intel admitted that it had shipped faulty Intel 6 series Cougar Point support chips. These were used in chipsets found in PCs built by manufacturers like Samsung, so product recalls tipped up on the cards.
Samsung said it will refund or exchange PCs that are part of six lines in Korea and one in the US. It's not going to take too much of a financial hit as Intel will fund the payments, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Intel admitted late yesterday that replacing the faulty Sandy Bridge chipsets and resolving the problem will cost it at least $700 million, since it had already shipped about 100,000 chipsets. Production of the Sandy Bridge chipsets is expected to get back to normal some time in April.
The near billion dollar write-off isn't very good for Intel. As well as the cost, it will cause problems for other manufacturers, which will have to delay releasing PCs at a particularly tricky time for the industry.
But you have to admire Intel for making the issue public and quickly recalling the chipsets. And due to Chipzilla's strength in the market and considerable revenue stream, it should weather this glitch. µ
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The $700,000,000 isn't just a process of sending people a replacement, the replacement does not exist.
It includes resolving the problem:
"... replacing the faulty Sandy Bridge chipsets and resolving the problem will cost it at least $700 million..."
If it was only 100,000 units shipped and it will cost them $700 Million that would make each unit $7000 for a recall. Something doesn't add up here.
Intel shipped nearly 8 mil chipsets
They could have waited for a bunch of class action lawsuits like Microsoft and Apple did many times.
Also they could have told that this was by design or it was a 3rd-party flaw or it was not a problem at all like, well, Microsoft and Apple did many times.
"But you have to admire Intel for making the issue public and quickly recalling the chipsets."
Yeah right. If the internet wasn't full of complaints regarding the issue,they would have sweeped it under the carpet as "within the statistical margin of error". You know, like that CoreDuo bug on laptops that made USB devices drain your battery. They sweeped under the carpet pretty nicely back then.
But now that the issue received FDIV proportions, their only option was to recall